The Summer Garden (38 page)

“
Why
did I come here?” Mark was saying. “I came here because I wanted to be with you, Dasha. And I
thought
you wanted to be with me.”

“This is a dead end between us,” said Dasha. “I know you think we’re having quite a romance, and I’m certainly not expecting more, I’m not asking you for more. Staying late after work in your office is enough for me in Leningrad. But I didn’t realize you felt I owed you even in Luga.”

Tatiana started humming. Mark said something.

“That’s what you want, right?” Dasha said. “Me to give myself to you for fifteen minutes during our lunch break, or between patients, on the reception sofa before you run home to your wife, while I go home to sleep in bed with my sister? Is there more, Mark? Because I didn’t realize there was. I thought that we were pretty much squeezing every drop out of the dry rag that is our relationship.”

Hummm…

Mark said something. It sounded like, “But I love you.”

“Did you love me when I got pregnant last year”—

Oh no! HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

—“What did you say to me then? You must have been saying I love you, but what I heard was, Dasha, there’s
nothing
we can do. We have nowhere to go. That must have been your I love you. And I knew you were right. Did I complain? Did I ask you to come with me to the clinic? No. I went by myself after work, and stood in line like all the other women, and afterward, another woman, a complete stranger, helped me walk home. The next day, I came into work. You and I went on as before. Oh, and by the way, I love you, too, Mark.” Dasha was crying.

Hummm…

“I’m resigned to my life,” Dasha said. “Resigned to my life at twenty-one.” Tatiana couldn’t hum loud enough to drown out her sister’s breaking voice. “But you know what? I think I prefer five hot minutes in the woods with Stefan to two years on that freezing sofa with you.”

“I love you, I do,” Mark said faintly. “I came to tell you I’m planning to tell my wife I’m leaving.”

“You better do more than figure out how to tell her, Mark,” said Dasha. “You better figure out how to leave her.”

“I thought we could stay in the office until the council found us a new place.”

“In the office? What, on the couch?” Dasha paused. Quietly they said some things Tatiana blessedly couldn’t hear. Then Dasha said, “Why can’t you just tell her she has to go live somewhere else? Tell her
she
has to leave, not you. Why does
she
get to stay? It’s your apartment. It’s registered to you. It’s her problem if there’s nowhere for her to live.”

Mark said something Tatiana couldn’t hear, but what she did hear was Dasha’s subsequent, “Are you kidding me? Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“She just told me last week,” Mark said quickly. “I didn’t know. She says it’s illegal now anyway to get rid of it.”

“Now,
there’s
a reason to keep a baby!” yelled Dasha.

“Well, she said she didn’t
want
to get rid of it.”

“She told you she was going to have a baby and you’re standing here under the cherry blossoms with me figuring out a way to leave her?”

Tatiana heard struggling, wrestling, slaps, footsteps, tears, heard Dasha walking away, crying, saying, “You are such a prize, Mark. You are such a fucking prize.”

Mark stayed outside smoking. Tatiana heard him even through the pillow over her head, kicking branches, muttering, lighting cigarette after cigarette.

He left to go back to Leningrad the following foggy morning at dawn. No one saw him go except Tatiana who watched his stooped back and his bag in his hand as he shuffled down the road. She watched him until he disappeared from sight and the cows went out to pasture, their bells clanging.

Tatiana could not even read her book, lying on her side, pitying her poor sister.

After going with Dasha to the women’s public baths at the
banya
that Saturday night, she and Dasha walked quietly back home, all bathed and clean, and flushed and red. Saika, who had not gone to the baths, asked if Tatiana wanted to come out and play, but Tatiana again refused. At home Dasha made Tatiana a fresh egg yolk and sugar milk shake, and after drinking it, Tatiana lay her head on Dasha’s lap on the porch sofa.

“Dashenka, sister, Dasha?”

“Yes?” She sounded so sad.

Tatiana swallowed. “Want to hear a funny story?”

“Oh, yes, please. I need a funny story to cheer me up. Tell me, darling.”

“Stalin as Chairman of the Presidium went in front of the Houses of Parliament to make a short speech that lasted maybe five minutes. After the speech there was applause.

“The plenum stood on its feet and applauded. For a minute. Then another minute. Then another minute.

“They stood and applauded. But—

“Another minute. Still applauded. They were standing up, and still applauding, as Stalin stood in front of the lectern and listened with a humble smile on his face, the epitome of humility. Another minute. And still applauded.

“No one knew what to do. They waited for a signal from the Chairman to cease, but no such signal came from the humble and diminutive man. Another minute went by. And still they stood and applauded.

“It had now been eleven minutes. And no one knew what to do. Someone had to stop applauding. But who?

“Twelve minutes of applause.

“Thirteen minutes of applause. And still he stood there. And still they stood there.

“Fourteen minutes.

“Fifteen minutes.

“Finally, at the fifteen-minute mark, the man in the front, the Secretary of Transportation, stopped. As soon as he stopped, the entire auditorium fell mute.

“The following week the Secretary of Transportation was shot for treason.”

“Tania!” exclaimed a startled Dasha. “That was supposed to be
funny
?”

“Yes,” said Tatiana. “Funny, as in, cheer up, things could be worse. You could be the Secretary of Transportation.”

“You are insane!” Dasha moved Tatiana off her and got up to go get a cigarette. “Where in the world do you hear this stuff from?”

“Blanca. Berta. Oleg. Deda. Everyone just loves to tell me things.”

“I forbid you to talk to them.”

“Who are you, my mother?”

Dasha fell mute as she lit up.

Tatiana patted her arm. “I’m sorry. When
is
Mama leaving, by the way? She punished me again, you know. I can’t go out for four days.”

“You deserve it, digging holes in the ground for her to fall in.”

“Hole wasn’t meant for her, was meant for Pasha.”

“I didn’t see Pasha sticking up for you as Mama was beating you with the stinging nettles.”

Tatiana rubbed her sore legs. She didn’t know what else to say. “Dasha…are you upset?”

“Why should I be upset?” Dasha looked so upset when she said it.

Tatiana didn’t reply, studying her sister.

“Stay out of adults’ business, Tanechka, all right?” Dasha whispered. “We’ll figure it out without you.”

Tatiana cleared her throat. “Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“Do you think I’m going to start developing soon? Growing…things?”

The sadness gone from Dasha’s eyes, the twinkle back, Dasha chuckled and said, “Girly-girl, come outside.” They went down the steps to the yard. “Come into the hammock,” Dasha said, “and climb on me.”

Happily Tatiana climbed in and lay in the crook of her sister’s arm while Dasha swung them back and forth. “Tanechka,” Dasha asked fondly, “what’s your hurry?”

“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand,” said Tatiana. “Just the opposite. I’m wondering how many decent years I’ve got left.”

“What—”

“Well, yes. Look at the magnificent swamp
you’re
in, all because you have boobs and dark hair on your body. I’m just wondering how much longer before the good life is over for me, too.”

Dasha hugged her. “Tania,” she said, “you are the funniest girl.” She laughed. “Who in the world is going to give you dark hair? You’ll be lucky to get any hair at all, but it’s never going to be dark, is it?”

“I already have a little hair,” Tatiana said defiantly. “And you don’t know. Mama said that when she was young she had blonde hair—and look at her now.”

“Yes, Mama said that. However, I’m skeptical. And Babushka said that when she got married she weighed only
forty-seven
kilo.”

“Stop it right now,” said Tatiana. The sisters laughed quietly. They lay in the hammock in the dark, swinging and swaying.

“I just want to find some love, Tanechka,” Dasha whispered. “Can you hear me? That’s all. Some real love.”

The dim kerosene light from the porch was flickering out. The crickets were loud, the air was fresh. Tatiana had fallen asleep, unworried, unfettered, untainted, untouched, and young.

Two Girls in the Trees at Night

“Tania, are you sleeping?”
It was Saika.

Tania
was
sleeping. Happily in her bed. She groaned. Oh, no, not again.

“Come on. Come outside with me.”

When would the girl stop lurking at her window? “What time is it?”

“Late. Come on. They’ll never know.”

“Are you joking? They check on me every five minutes. Besides I’m punished.”

“Why are you asleep so early? I thought you were reading.”

Saika wanted her asleep late, awake early. Was Tatiana
ever
going to get any peace? Reluctantly she lifted her head.

“Climb out. We’ll go in my yard.”

“And do what?”

“Nothing. Talk. I got something.”

Tatiana slept in her underwear
and
vest now that Saika knocked at her window every morning and night. She slipped on a dress and climbed out. They crossed the yard, and flitted through the nettles and the broken fence pieces. They climbed a tree. In the tree Tatiana sat on a thick branch above Saika who perched on a lower one. She pulled out two cigarettes and handed one to Tatiana. “I stole these from Mama. Come on, take one.”

“You stole from your
mother
?”

Saika laughed. “She doesn’t care; it’s just cigarettes. It’s not her immortal soul as you put it.”

“So you do draw the line then.” Tatiana did not take the offered cigarettes.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a ninny. Everybody does it.”

“What, steal from their mothers?”

“No, smoke.” Proudly she lit up and added, “I’ve been smoking since I was nine.”

“That’s great.” Why was she in the trees? Truth was…curiosity about the scars brought Tatiana out. Saika’s scars were not just a punishment gone wrong. They were not an overzealous parent disciplining a wayward child. No, Saika was not beaten—she was branded. Her back was her
fleur de lis
. It was her brand of monstrous dishonor; no one who saw those could ever
not
think with a frightened heart of what a young girl could possibly have done to have warranted such a cicatrix of shame.

Night was quiet. The leaves in the trees where they sat smelled of woodsy acorns. From above, Tatiana watched Saika inhale and exhale, ash falling on her thighs. Cigarette smoke, blossoms, fresh water and moist earth, moist grass. Maybe it was things like pinching cigarettes from her mother that got Saika into trouble. Tatiana didn’t know. She didn’t want to speculate, she wanted to ask outright. She was curious herself, and Pasha had been prodding her for days. “Come on, Tania. She likes you. She’s always Tania this and Tania that. She’ll tell you anything. You can’t just not ask.”

Dasha said, “He’s right. It’s rude not to ask. The worst thing that’s happened to a girl, and you don’t even ask?”

“Wouldn’t she tell me herself if she wanted me to know?” Tatiana had said.

“No! Asking shows you’re interested.”

Even Babushka said to ask. (Mama didn’t care, but Mama, to her credit, didn’t care about much.) Only Deda, reading quietly on the couch, stayed out of it until the end when he glanced up and commanded, “Tania, stay out of it. It’s not your business.”

So Deda decreed. And now Tatiana sat in the tree and tried to forget Deda’s words because she
really
wanted to ask. She heard Saika laugh softly. “Do you think I disconcerted your friends the other day? Haven’t they ever seen a girl naked?
You
go naked in front of them, don’t you, Tania?”

“I’m a child.”

“Do you want to stay a child?” Saika whispered.

“
What
?”

Shaking her head, Saika smoked, while Tatiana carefully formulated her questions.

“Well?” Saika said. “What do you want? Do you want to touch them?”

Now,
Tatiana
was disconcerted. “Touch what?” she asked faintly.

“The scars, silly.” Saika laughed, pulling down her dress to expose her bare back.

Reaching down, Tatiana gently touched one of the rough-hewn ridges, but when she did, Saika flinched and moved away. Tatiana reached out again to put her palm on Saika’s back, to comfort her with her hand, but Saika flinched again, emitted a tiny groan and moved farther away, nearly off the branch, far enough so that no part of Tatiana could touch any part of her.

“What’s the matter?” Tatiana said. “I’m not…hurting you, am I?”

“No, no,” Saika said. “Just…” But before she pulled up her dress, she turned around to Tatiana, her breasts rising with her heavy breath. “Do you want to touch them?” she said throatily, and now it was Tatiana’s turn to move uncomfortably away.

“No.” Tatiana swallowed. “But…how did you get those scars, Saika?”

Sighing, Saika pulled up her dress, covered herself. “I did something my father didn’t like.”

“What?”

“Just…I was bad…”

“Is that why you came here? Why you left Saki?”

Saika looked at Tatiana with surprise. “You think because of a small personal matter my father would abandon his post?”

“His post as a
goat-herder
?” Tatiana rejoined with equal surprise.

Her eyes dark, Saika said, “Our leaving had nothing to do with this. This didn’t happen in Saki, anyway, it happened right before. But when our work was done, we left and went where there was work. Nothing to do with this.”